Sabres Of Paradise started out as a studio production team. A trio that consisted of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. Weatherall was a highly respected DJ, part of the Boy’s Own collective and a London Balearic Beat icon. He’d already gained wide spread acclaim for a series of radical remixes for a variety of artists, but most notably for Primal Scream. He’d worked with a range of engineers and co-producers, including Kris Weston and Alex Paterson of The Orb, but his partnership with Hugo Nicolson turned everything they touched into leftfield dancefloor gold.  

Kooner was part of a large circle of friends from West London. This group consisted of people such as Dean Thatcher, Darren Rock, Clive Henry, Steven Harper, Glenn Gunner and Brandon Block, all of whom would become involved with a London club night called “Flying” (1). They all shopped, and in some cases worked at The Record & Disco Centre, on Rayners Lane, which was run by Jon Jules, who was and is a legend on the UK soul scene. Along with Jules and Gunner, Kooner threw West London’s first ever “rave”, a party called Trance at a club called Barbarella’s on The Uxbridge Road (the venue is now a McDonalds). Together with another friend, Richie Fermie, and armed with Roland’s TR-808, 909 and TB-303, Kooner performed a live improvised jam. He and Fermie would later release one of the UK’s first acid house records, under the moniker Adrenalin M.O.D. 

Kooner and Thatcher then began making records as The Aloof. Thatcher, the resident DJ at Flying, was also picking up remix work, for artists such as Ian Dury, Kiss AMC, and Saint Etienne, which Kooner co-produced. The pair had hired a studio situated above a music shop, Project Music, on The Beavers Estate in Hounslow, right under one of Heathrow Airport’s runaway approaches. The place is now immortalised as “The Flightpath Estate”. This was were Burns worked. 

Burns was a gifted keyboardist and accomplished session musician. Through his considerable contributions to Kooner and Thatcher’s productions, the 3 became firm friends, and Burns, subsequently, was another regular at Flying’s hedonistic Saturday night shindigs. On one of these nights, in 1991, Weatherall, who’d been DJing approached Kooner, expressed his admiration for another of his productions – a white label named Tarantella by La Camorra – and suggested that they do something together (2). They swapped numbers, but Kooner, admittedly starstruck, wrote it off as one of the many “I think you’re great” ecstasy-fuelled conversations that were common place in those days. 

Weatherall did call though, and invited Kooner and Burns to join him at Workhouse Studios, on The Old Kent Road, and help remix Jah Wobble’s Visions Of You. The next thing they did was the One Dove album. From there the trio became a tight unit. Remixes for Flowered Up, Future Sound Of London, Galliano, Moody Boyz and Yello followed, at which point they thought, “Shit, let’s give this thing a name.” Sabres Of Paradise were officially christened in 1993. Their alias taken from either a Haysi Fantayzee b-side or Lesley Blanch’s 1960 novel about warring Russian mountain tribes, depending on which story you believe.

Initially they divided their time between studios paid for by commissioning record companies, such as Orinoco, in South London, where Tim Holmes, later of Death In Vegas, was head engineer, and that room on The Flightpath Estate. However, to cut down on expenses, and travelling times, Burns, Kooner and Weatherall ending up buying the Hounslow space, and it was rechristened Sabresonic Studios. 

The place was available for hire, and Kooner and Burns were in the studio 365, 24 / 7, not only working on Sabres stuff, but also shaping sounds for The Aloof, David Holmes, and the majority of artists on Flying’s spin-off label, Cowboy Records. When they weren’t making music they were installing new gear. Remix-wise, The Sabres were incredibly prolific, Discogs will give you a list of over 30 acts (3). Not wanting to lose the vibe, or reload all the samples and effects, tracks were often completed on the day, with mixes performed live, on the fly, at the desk. 

The Sabres then signed an artist deal with Warp. The label wanted an album, which was complied by cherry-picking their vast archive of DATs. Resulting in a sort of Sabresonic Studios “Best Of”, that included a rejected Primal Scream remix (Still Fighting), an aborted lager ad (RSD) and a host of, at the time, unnamed tracks – such as the seminal Smokebelch II (4). These were initially ID-ed only by date, with Weatherall coming up with titles to meet Warp’s deadline. Inspired by anything and everything that caught his attention, such as the pollution bellowing from the Ratcliffe On Soar power station. 

Largely  for the craic, The Sabres then decided to put a live band together. Kooner and Burns manned machines and keys, Richard Thair, of Red Snapper and The Aloof, was on drums, Nick Abnett played bass, Phil Mossman, now of LCD Soundsystem, guitar (5). Sabresonic Studio engineer, Keith Tenniswood, handled the sound. The band toured all through 1994, both on their own, and supporting Primal Scream. The Sabres studio outfit, however, had also been tasked with writing a new album. A cohesive collection was something that they hadn’t done before, but along the way the process produced the singles Wilmott and Theme – the latter used in the British Jude Law-starring crime movie, Shopping. 

The long-player, Haunted Dancehall, appeared in the autumn of 1994, but, soon after The Sabres split. Sabresonic II was released to fulfil contractual obligations, and containing no new material it was effectively a “Greatest Hits”. Weatherall then formed Two Lone Swordsmen, with Tenniswood. Burns and Kooner continued to work as a successful studio duo, and went on tour with The Aloof. Kooner eventually setting out solo in the late `90s, carving a career with a long list of luminaries, ranging from Primal Scream, David Holmes and The Charlatans, to Kasabian, Oasis and the Dandy Warhols. 

Weatherall sadly passed, prematurely, in 2020, leaving a generation shaken and huge creative hole. The Sabres Of Paradise band, however, have recently reformed, and are currently rehearsing and readying for an extensive worldwide tour. What follows is part of a conversation with Jagz Kooner, that hopefully answers a few questions about their past, while also giving a glimpse of their future. 

Sabres Of Paradise at Sugar Sweet, Belfast, 1994. Photograph care of Jagz Kooner. 

What was it that made you put a  Sabres live  band together in the first place? 

In the beginning I think it was mainly just a fun thing to do, since we were already working with some of the band members in various guises. Rich Thair was in The Aloof and Red Snapper, Phil Mossman had played guitar with us on remixes and productions – in particular for One Dove – and Nick Abnett was part of the scene too. It just seemed to work really well when we all got together in a rehearsal space and started putting the live tracks together. There was great synergy and a connection between all of us.

Can you remember the first Sabres gig? 

The first time we played live was at the YMCA on Tottenham Court Road. It was an event, called Pirate TV, put on by James Baillie and Dave Dorrell.

I saw the Sabres play at a venue next to Victoria Station, and Andrew seemed to be doing a live dub mix. Was this the case, or was I just out of it? He was also mixing Plastikman’s Spastik in and out of Richard’s drums.

Well remembered! Yes, that is true. The Sabres live show set up was Andrew would DJ first, then the band would go on, then Andrew would come back on and DJ until the end of the night. However, on a few occasions Gary, on Keys, Rich, on percussion,  and myself, on effects, would go back on stage, join Andrew and kinda remix the tracks he was playing. It was a lot of fun and added a whole new dimension to the records Andrew was spinning.

The Sabres did Primal Scream’s Give Out But Don’t Give Up tour in 1994. Did The Sabres also tour on their own, or with any other bands? 

Yes, we did our own tour in May 1994: Nation in Liverpool, Newcastle University, Glasgow’s Arches, Leeds’ Back To Basics, Orianas in Brighton, Norwich Waterfront, The Full Monty in Windsor. The SW1 Club was the gig that you were at (6). 

It was a great tour as we also had FatCat’s Alex Knight DJing and visuals by Vegetable Vision – who were Noah Clarke and Adam Smith. Adam is now part of Smith & Lyle who create all the stunning Chemical Brothers visuals and stage shows. We had Sean Johnston – of A Love From Outer Space – taking care of merchandise!

Did you get to globe trot a bit?

Not really. We did go to Japan to do a few shows though. The last ever gig was at The Liquid Rooms in Tokyo. 

Sabres Of Paradise seemed to come to an end in around 1995. I always assumed that this was due to your touring commitments with The Aloof, and / or Andrew’s commitments as a DJ.

No not at all. We called it a day as the band was starting to become quite popular and become a big commitment. This started a shift away from the studio production outfit that we were originally.

The studio partnership split, and we called it a day on all things Sabres, including the band. I can’t remember exactly what was behind this decision. We didn’t have the obligatory falling out through differences in “musical direction”, or in-band fighting, or anything like that. I think it was more a case of Andrew not wanting to be tied to one thing, and him wanting to try something new.

Did you and Gary continue working together in the studio on music other than The Aloof?

For a while, but we parted company in 1997 when I left The Aloof. Gary stayed with The Aloof and I went on to work closely with David Holmes, eventually building a career as a producer / remixer under my own name. 

Shortly after Andrew’s passing, you and Gary released the tribute track, Mountain Of One, under the alias Stray Harmonix. How did you hook up again? 

We met at Andrew’s funeral, after having not spoken to each other for around 20 years. We decided to keep in touch a bit more and that’s how Mountain Of One came about .

Will there be any more music from this project?

Probably not, but then again you should never say never!

What prompted The Sabres band to reform?

The reformation of the live band came about after me and Gary were asked by Martin Brannagan, from The Flightpath Estate, if we would be  interested in doing a Q+A to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sabresonic. This then took place at Andrew’s spiritual home, The Golden Lion in Todmorden. Whilst there Rob Fletcher, who used to run a club night in Manchester, called The Herbal Tea Party, asked if he could play a live recording of the Sabres band that he’d managed to capture from the front of house desk back in 1994. I was really impressed by how we sounded on the recording. It’s hard to be objective when you’re on stage playing your instruments, and actually listen to how it sounds to everyone in the crowd. The Q+A went so well, and there was so much love and interest in The Sabres that it started the ball rolling on speaking to the band members about reforming for a few shows.

(Rob – this live set is amazing, just wait until you get to Smokebelch at the end)

Who’s in the current line-up?

The live band line-up is exactly the same as it was 30 years ago. Gary on keys, Rich on drums, Nick on bass, Phil on guitar and myself on drum machines, synths, effects and dub mixing.

How many dates do have?

We have a handful of dates confirmed, including Sydney Opera House, Dekmantel, Primavera and Fabric on May 29th – which will be our first show in 30 years! These are a few others pending as well. The plan is to perform a lot more shows in 2026, so that every one gets chance to see us before we call time on The Sabres forever.

Can we expect any new Sabres music?

Maybe! We‘ve found a a bunch of lost tapes, and about 8 or 9 songs that the world has never heard – since we split before completing the album after Haunted Dancehall. However, we’re only doing the Sabres reformation until the end of next year. With the amount of work that it normally takes to get an album ready for release, I’m not sure we’ll have time before that final ride off into the sunset.

The front cover of the May `94 tour itinerary, on which the new t-shirt designs are based.

A huge Thank You to Jagz for putting up with my pages and pages of questions. The other part of the interview will appear later this year in Electronic Sound. Details for the intro also came from Nigel Humberstone’s in-depth 1995 Sound On Sound interview with Gary and Jagz, and the excellent Flightpath Estate Q&A hosted by Adam Turner. 

For updates on The Sabres tour – including tickets for the imminent Fabric gig – please check their Linktree. Some great rehearsal videos have been posted to Instagram and Facebook. There’s also merchandise available from the folks at Gnostic Sonics. 

Notes

(1) Kooner taught Rock – now better known as Rocky, one half of the chart-topping X-Press 2 – how to mix. The Trance rave also saw the DJing debut of Rocky alongside his long-standing musical partner, Darren “Diesel” House. 

(2) La Camorra was Jagz and Marino “Murry” Cicero: “Murry was a fantastic piano player. We would make bootlegs with Italian sounding names so that people thought they were imports, rather than something made on the outskirts of West London!”

(3) Here’s a “quick” list of artists The Sabres officially remixed, pulled from Discogs: Black Sheep, Bjork, Bomb The Bass, Bros Love Dubs, Bumble, Cymbol, Dust (now Chemical) Brothers, Espiritu, Fun-Da-Mental, Holy Ghost, Innersphere, James, K-Klass, Leftfield, New Order, LMNO, Ohm, The Orb, Peace Together, Primal Scream, Psychic TV (covering Throbbing Gristle), Red Snapper, Renegade Soundwave, Scorn, Skylab, Stereo MCs, Therapy, Transglobal Underground, Utah Saints, Uzma and Wolfgang Press. They turned down Madonna, U2 and Prince’s Sign O’ The Times.

(4) RSD stands for “Red Stripe Dub”. Legend has it that there are unreleased versions out there. Only Rude Audio’s Mark Ratcliff knows for sure.

(5) Mossman and Kooner had worked together before, as This Ragged Jack. 

(6) It was at this gig that me and The Lizard were caught doing nose-up, first by Kris Needs and then by the celebrity duo of Fergal Sharkey and Eastenders’ Dirty Den.